History, Natural Law, Republican Party Establishment

Rush Limbaugh On the Tea Party Americans in 2011 (Lessons for 2022 Midterms)

This is from the Rush Limbaugh Show, 10/13/2011

Every place you read “Tea Party” simply substitute “MAGA”, “Make America Great Again”, which Donald Trump coined in 2016, five years later.

RUSH: Ladies and gentlemen, there’s a big piece in the New York Times Magazine coming this weekend. It is entitled: “Does Anyone Have a Grip on the GOP?” The subhead: “The Republican Elite Tries to Take Its Party Back.” This article prints like 24 pages. It is a major, major New York Times Magazine piece. It confirms everything that I have thought, everything I have speculated, everything I have said about the battle between the Republican elite and the Tea Party.

I can’t read the whole thing on the program; I don’t intend to. I’ve got some highlights or quotes that are illustrative here, but this is an open declaration of war from the GOP elites to the Tea Party, and it’s right there in the New York Times. And these Republican establishment types are more than willing to be quoted by name, and what I think it all means is they think that they’ve beaten the Tea Party hordes back.

Do you realize that Chuck Schumer (Deputy to Harry Reid at the time) and a bunch of Democrats are running around campaigning now against the Tea Party? The Tea Party poses the greatest threat to this country. The Tea Party is a bunch of racist, sexist bigots. This is their message and the Republican elite, while not joining word for word that message, are still joining with the Democrats in the notion that the Tea Party is a problem and needs to be beaten back.

(Me: This is from over 10 years ago. This is how far back this fear, first from the Democrats, then the Senate majority under Harry Reid, but drilled into the Republicans, their Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, goes back.)

Now, this piece in the New York Times illustrates the obstacles “Tea Party lawmakers” are up against. All these Republican freshmen in the House, for example, this article makes it plain how difficult their job is. There’s even a section in this story on compromise, the bad kind of compromise, the kind of compromise that Republicans have been known for: get along with the Democrats, please the media, show that we’re not the unreasonable Tea Party types. That’s what’s shaking down here. The Tea Party is under assault from the Democrats and the Republican elite, and now the battle has been brought full fore in the pages of the New York Times Magazine.

There’s some quotes from various people in this story. Bill Kristol on the Tea Party: “It’s an infantile form of conservatism.” Scott Reed, veteran strategist and lobbyist: “I think it’s waning now,” talking to the reporter of the story about the Tea Party’s influence. “Party leaders have managed to bleed some of the anti-establishment intensity out of the movement, Reed said, by slyly embracing Tea Party sympathizers in Congress, rather than treating them as ‘those people.’ Did he mean to say that the party was slowly co-opting the Tea Partiers? ‘Trying to,’ Reed said. ‘And that’s the secret to politics: trying to control a segment of people without those people recognizing that you’re trying to control them.’” This is a Republican consultant talking about how to neutralize the Tea Party.

John Feehery, a lobbyist who was once a senior House aide I think to Denny Hastert, is also quoted. “The thing I get a kick out of is these Tea Party people calling me a RINO. No, guys, I’ve been a Republican all along. You go off on your own little world and then come back and say it’s your party. Well, this ain’t your party.” Vin Weber, regarding the Tea Party lawmakers. Vin Weber is a former member of Congress from Minnesota, now a big time lobbyist and Republican consultant. Vin Weber: “One thing I do notice about ’em is when I ask them, ‘So how are you enjoying it?’” talking about the Tea Party members of Congress, “almost none of them say, ‘Oh, jeez, I’m really loving this.’ They all say some version of, ‘This is not what I’d want to be doing, but I’ve got to do it for the country.’” So, “Weber seemed genuinely surprised that this aversion to Washington didn’t melt away once they arrived in town.”

Gosh, what have we always speculated here? Or what have we always known? One of the biggest problems is conservatives run around the country, campaign, and get elected on conservatism; then go to Washington, get corrupted and co-opted by the culture there. Here’s Vin Weber admitting it! Vin Weber is admitting it and shocked and stunned that the Tea Party guys haven’t fallen for it yet. He says he’s surprised. Yeah, they’re not really loving this. They’re here not doing what they want to do; they’re trying to save the country. “Weber seemed genuinely surprised that this aversion to Washington didn’t melt away once they got to town.” He says, ‘I can just tell you when I came to Congress we were rabble-rousers, but, boy, if you’d asked any of us six months into it how we were enjoying it, we woulda said, “This is the greatest opportunity of a lifetime.”

“‘It just struck me, and it’s part and parcel of this anti-government mind-set,’” meaning: “We in the Republican Party. ‘We’re not anti-government,’ these Tea Party anti-government people, why, they’re so damn serious, they can’t enjoy this! They don’t understand the kind of power they’ve got. They don’t realize the fun they could be having. When we got here, we had a ball! We just fell right into it and we wanted to become big parts of the machine!” I’m adding my own words here but that’s how I’m interpreting what Weber means. “‘Yeah, it just struck me,’ Weber said. ‘It’s part and parcel of this anti-government mind-set.’” This is a reporter writing: “I wondered if maybe the Tea Partiers’ contempt for Washington was just a kind of outsiders’ schtick.

“Weber replied glumly, ‘I’d feel better about it if I thought it was,’ but Weber said, ‘I think these people are genuinely anti-Washington,’” and that makes him nervous. Can’t have that! If they’re anti-Washington, we don’t want ’em here. “Charlie Black, longtime Republican “strategerist” and lobbyist confidently predicted when he talked to [the New York Times reporter] about the more radical members of the freshman class, they’ll become the establishment. You wait.” I thought George Will said there was no Republican establishment anymore! I thought the Republican establishment itself was trying to say there’s no establishment in recent weeks. I thought they were all saying it has just a fiction of everybody’s imagination. Here’s Charlie Black: Yeah, they’ll become the establishment.

He’s talking about the Tea Party freshmen: They’ll become the establishment in time; not worried about it. Bill Kristol again: “I’ve been slightly, not worried, but I’ve just regarded it as one of the things I can do as a genuine Tea Party sympathizer to counsel Tea Party types to be sensible, not go overboard and not go in the wrong direction. From my point of view, I wouldn’t want ’em to win all of their fights.” He wants ’em to lose some. Bill Kristol wants the Tea Party to lose some. The New York Times is worried that the wrong people might get control of the Republican Party. That’s what this story is about. The reason why this story is running is because of abject fear of the Tea Party. The Washington elite love a Republican elite that agrees to be second fiddle.

The media and the Washington elite love a Republican elite who agree to be the minority. The Washington elite, the New York Times, and the media love a Republican elite that understands its place is number two in the pecking order. So the New York Times is now worried the “wrong” people might get control of the GOP — and you know how concerned the New York Times is about the well-being of the Republican Party. They need the party to maintain its mind-set of second fiddle, second place, always on defense, always not really in the clique and striving to get in it. That’s what they want the Republican Party to be, and the Tea Party threatens that.

Scott Reed: “Yep, trying to, that’s the secret of politics: Trying to control a segment of people without those people recognizing you’re trying to control ’em.” Luckily none of these hicks in the Tea Party would ever read the New York Times so they won’t figure out what’s being done on ’em.

Stop and think of this. Here are these Republican elites announcing all of this, being quoted by name in the New York Times Sunday Magazine as though the Tea Party members of Congress are never gonna find out about this! It’s a — I don’t know — open declaring of war? What we’ve always known is going on, what they’ve always denied is going on, now it’s happening and the New York Times proudly writes a cover story in this weekend’s magazine of 7,028 words, 73 paragraphs. From the New York Times article: “George Will recently said there is no such thing as the Republican establishment, which is a little like Michael Douglas say there’s no such thing as Hollywood.” That’s from the article.

That’s not me. (Limbaugh)

That was Rush Limbaugh on Oct 13, 2011. This (below) is me, the following day, Oct 14, 2011.

The South wasn’t supposed to fire the first shot in the Civil War, but they did.

And some say they were finessed.

Rush Limbaugh, as early as a year ago, began asking the question of conservatives: What is the first order of business, beating Obama or beating the GOP Establishment?

We number in the millions while they number in the tens of thousands so I am unsure why they launched the war in the first place, and in the New York Times to boot.

But they did. Good. The hard part is over, that all-important but uncomfortable invitation to a gunfight. No more beating about the bush.

Let’s set the table first.

This is not about tea parties, but conservatism. People inside the Establishment, even some with remarkable conservative histories and credentials, George Will comes to mind, Bill Kristol does not, must still protect their “place,” their status, within the Establishment above all things. This has been proved. Conservatism has become subordinated to maintaining this station, not unlike some very successful television preachers.

As we have watched for five years really, not three, they have holstered much of their conservatism, blankly watching honor hobbled down, and any pretense of fealty to the Constitution discarded. Not by the Democrats, but by the Republican Establishment itself.

“Hold the line, Gentlemen, hold the line” has always been their clarion call, only it did not apply to the People, it seems, but only these their own comrades around the Establishment table.

Just as they now brag about bringing new congressmen into the House and seducing them into the ways of the “insider,” they themselves have become seduced with this overpowering feeling of self-importance.

The love of Liberty becomes lost in the shuffle, especially now that the Democrats and Obama have been very clear about their own ideals about “liberty”.

The Tea Parties’ creation were as much in response to their “no response” to Obama’s socialist message as it was to Obama himself.

At one time the headiest reform movement inside the Party, going back to Clinton, was the likes of these conservatives. In the end, they’ve had to make their peace with people they never really liked in order to come out against a rabble in arms who, in the end, has a thousand times greater understanding…instinctive intellectual understanding…of the true essence of a constitutional republic…and the hoi poloi it was designed to empower.

This is not a war against the Tea Parties, but against irresolute conservatism of all stripes.  This is not about two different ideas about fighting Evil, but about accommodating it.

This is not a war for reason, or good sense, nor even intellectual fealty to any Higher Cause, but rather a war to protect a self-appointed class…a class that has failed miserably and stands directly responsible for our being in the shape we’re in right now…a class that refused to protect and fight a fight it was ordained to protect and fight, all for the sake of protecting itself and its station, forcing us to fight this fight ourselves.

They may own the Republican Party, but we we own the Republican Brand, the original brand. (This issue was addressed in June, 2013, “The Doctrine of Liberty, Who Owns it?” leading to the take back of the majority in the Senate in the 201 elections). Again, because we numbered in the millions, and the GOP Establishment numbers in the tens of thousands, we should get our way in this matter, just like it was drawn up

The Republican Party doesn’t have seven million plantation voters, or five million barrio balloteers. The GOP doesn’t even have union-paid goon squads.

We are it. And like it or not, we’re going to get our seats in the Halls of Power one way or another.

This is a war for new leadership, including the beard-strokers. Time to move on, folks.

This is a war that has needed to be fought since the GOP Establishment gave Clinton a pass in 1998. This is a war whose time has come.

And the first battlefield, before the Battle of Obama in 2012, will be the ballot box battle against these aristocrats of the Beltway in the coming spring-summer.

Let history begin.

(Me, today)

If you younger conservative whippersnappers can’t recall this period, acquaint yourselves with it, for the firefights you’re seeing today have been going on for over a decade, now.

And yes, somewhere, sometime, between June 2015 and January, 2017, the “Tea Party-Americans” who have been mentioned throughout these 2011 writings (above), became “MAGA-Americans”, Make-America-Great-Again.

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